2013.07.25 - Beekeeper Attack!
Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. is busy this evening. At least busier than a privately run but government funded energy research lab usually is. Something has the scientists excited, namely the fact that they recently got their hands on a piece of rare super-metal believed to be a relative of vibranium with a wide variety of uses to science. So there's all kinds of 'No, I get a sample first!' from the various departments. Miguel Santos, otherwise known as the Living Lightning, isn't joining in the excitement. He's just guarding the big metal box it's stored in as it's lowered out of the transport truck and moved into the main building. Of course things are about to get busier. A pair of what seem to be oversized flying vans are headed towards the facility over the water. They're ignoring radio contact and each bear a logo for 'Advanced Idea Mechanics' on their sides. Looks like trouble is coming! There's more than one sample of 'rare metal' in this building tonight. Or there will be. Because among the group touring the facility is a teenaged girl. One who has been trying to keep a low profile for a while now. Pretty much ever since she was told that this isn't her reality. Who is the girl? One Sarah Rogers. And while right now she is wearing a pair of blue jeans and a loose fitting Red T-shirt with a panda on it, she is also part of a tour group. Why is she even here? Simply put, after a little internet research at a library, this place did turn up as a place where she /might/ be able to find someone to help her get home, or to be able to master her Hammer and then in turn get home. Thus she's looking at everything with a bit of wide eyed amazement, while also keeping her eyes and ears open for anything that may indicate who she needs to talk too. So, what was Jocelyn Stream on Staten Island this evening? After all, it was a little far from her usual haunts. Well, the teenager thought it'd be interesting to randomly take a tour of the facility. If she was going to go into some sort of related field at some point, Jocelyn figured it wouldn't hurt to actually tour the facility. So she pulled some strings and got one of the last slots for this tour today. And by pulling some strings, we mean that she walked up and said she wanted to go on the tour, because it wasn't exactly the most popular tourist attraction around, unless you were a science geek. So while Jocelyn had seen a number of things on this tour, she happens to glance up and look in the direction of where those AIM vans are coming from. While she couldn't see the vans from where she was, that was a pair of low-flying powered devices. Too small to be planes, which was a good thing, but now Jocelyn was curious. Especially when she notices the odd energy signatures. Now that, that wasn't normal. But it might be something the company had. They had all sorts of advanced stuff. Still, the girl is noticably distracted at the moment as she seems to track something along the wall and ceiling with her eyes. Vorpal had decided to take it easy after leaving the hospital. It had only been a few days there, thanks to Daytripper's miraculous potions, but he was still animically rather low. Something educational, he had thought, would help him relax before he went back into things. Educational, stimulating... so, of course, the laboratories. Why? Because the cat was a geek at heart. He may not have the best grasp of technology and science proper, but he held it in reverence, and he was always interested in what new things were discovered. That, and he always wanted to be on the alert for anything that might help Patrick find a way back home. Mind you, one that would allow for back-and-forth. And who did he find taking the tour, but Jocelyn... small world, really. The cat still had some bandages on him, but he wasn't the mummy he had been but a few days before Amanda's elixir had worked its stuff. "Fancy meeting you here, of all places, eh Joce?" the cat comments to Jocelyn, walking up to her as the tour begins. Those aero-vans keep coming, ignoring warnings from security to break off. They don't even identify themselves. When a pair of defense turrets on the ceiling of the building turn to aim, energy blasts lance out from the main craft's 'headlights' and blast the turrets to bits. "We here at Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. are happy you all joined us for today's tour. Please don't wander off or take off your visitor badges while inside the facility. Now today is a special day. We're getting a very rare sample as you can see behind you. Our lead scientists believe-" The tour guide starts her introduction only to be cut off by the explosions outside. Red lights turn on and alarms are raised. "Please remain calm, ladies and gentlemen. There's a safe room just this way!" the guide immediately starts trying to herd the tour group towards a room deeper in the facility. Miguel continues to keep watch over the box, walking alongside the team wheeling it in. Right up until he picks up the chatter over his security radio and looks up in time to see the explosion. "Dios..." he mutters. As alarms go off, electricity crackles around him. "Get inside!" he calls to the team of scientists, gesturing them in and turning to face the Aero Vans as they come in for a landing. THe sides open wide on both. Out of the first, a large group of people dressed in bright yellow holding various high-tech looking weapons jump out and start jogging towards the main facility. Out of the second a more intimidating sight....first a man in a garish yellow and green costume steps forward and sneers. Electricity crackles around him as well and he cracks his knuckles. Electro! After him is a hulking grey giant. He's heavy enough to leave footprints in the dirt that leave a distinctive cinderblock pattern. Fitting as it's Cinderblock! Lastly is a silent young man. Mostly covered in a black cloak, what's visible of his skin is a pale blue. Kid Wykkd!. "Let's earn our paychecks!" Electro laughs, lifting into the air surrounded by an electrical aura. An overly tall redhead might stand out in the crowd, but it's not enough to catch Sarah by surprise or find it too odd. A cat boy on the other hand....? Well, Sarah does sort of blink at Vorpal as he joins the tour group. But she tries not to stare. After all, she has seen all sorts of oddities in her home reality, on her home planet. This is just slightly odder than normal for her. Then again, she does sort of /start/ moving closer to the pair, if only to satisfy her curiosity regarding Vorpal, when there's explosions and red flashing lights, which pulls her attention away from him. Heck, as the tour guide tries to lead the tour group to a 'safe spot', Sarah up and breaks off from the group as she turns to look out the large lobby windows at the attackers. She doesn't even stop to think as she even rushes for the exit so she can get at them. "You picked the wrong time to attack this place boys!" You paged Jocelyn with 'Sure. Shove away' "Indeed, fancy meeting you here Keith". Then the tour starts. Then there is clearly a problem involving explosions. Jocelyn, who can see such things, taps Keith on the shoulder and snarls a single name under her breath. "Electro". Yeah. The same guy who toasted Joce awhile back had shown up here. Except this time he didn't have the advantage of stealth on his side. No sniping her with a dozen blasts at once this time. So, Jocelyn sort of 'drags behind' in getting to the safe room. Once all the people taking the tour are in the safe room, aside from the tour guide, Jocelyn lets out a little invisible kinetic burst that causes the tour guide to stumble back into the safe room. And the door is shut by the same burst. Whoops! Well, the rest of the 'tour' will just have to fend for themselves, now won't they? "Three individuals up there. Electro. Someone with magic. And someone else who is big". She couldn't get much of a read on Cinderblock's life energy. She does note that Sarah is running towards the attackers. Well, hopefully she could help. Jocelyn does channel some energy into herself to boost her physical abilities as well as emit some infared energy to obscure herself from the inevitable cameras she'll be running past. Not like she needs to be identified by some security tape! Then Jocelyn starts flying through the hallways and off to where the action is, since she could fly much faster than she could run. Vorpal harrumphs as he hears the name "Electro". Of -course- he would be here. He pushes off the ground to engage his levitation, and then hangs on to Jocelyn's legs to catch a ride, since he could not float that quickly. "Do you want to take care of Electro, or should I do the honors? He's going to try to zap you again like he did that other time. If he tries that, I'll protect us with a barrier." he smirks "... we've fought side by side a lot already. Does this make me your sidekick?" The tour guide lets out a yelp as she's shoved in, losing one of her shoes in the process. There's some banging on the door before the secondary door lowers to seal the room. There's not too much between the heroes and getting outside. Some scrambling scientists clutching papers or devices, security officers in the facility's standard armor and carrying taze-rifles, and strangely enough an ostrich wearing a pair of goggles mostly ignore the three as they run to where they're going. Outside is another story. A few of the project's security people trade fire with the AIM soldiers, the windows strangely sturdy and withstanding even direct hits from the blasts. The AIM goons all clear a path as Cinderblock starts running for the front door. Electro meanwhile starts tossing lightning bolts at the building, damaging where he hits. He's pretty surprised when one of his bolts suddenly veers off course and gets absorbed into Miguel's waiting hand. "Imitation might be flattering but there's only one Living Lightning!" the young man calls, changing into his electric form and flying up at Electro. Kid Wykkd meanwhile is just walking calming in Cinderblock's wake. Occasionally he dodges a blast from the few security guys but he doesn't seem that concerned. The tall girl is...? All right, so it registers with Sarah that as she rushes outside, that Jocelyn is /flying/. Which means powers. Which is a good thing. And finally, the other dimensional teen does place where she has seen Vorpal before, namely at that attempted kidnapping a month or so back. Thus if he's holding onto the redhead, she's more than likely a 'good guy' as far as Sarah can tell. Thus as she gets outside more or less when they do, and she see's Living Lightning redirecting Electros electrical blasts, Sarah smiles, before she strikes her right fist against a wall. As soon as that fist connects, there's a sound like a crack of thunder, before what Sarah is wearing is replaced by a new outfit. A green one, with a hooded cloak akin to Rogues. Also, on her left arm is a shield that looks like Captain Americas, while in her left hand is a hammer that no only looks Asgardian, but to those who can detect it, they can pick up the fact that it radiates the same kind of mystical energy that Asgardian artifacts radiate. "I guess I'll take the ugly one!" is said as Sarahs feet leave the ground and she sort of floats there for the moment, twilrling that hammer, before she up and throws it with all her might at Cinderblock. "And if anyone needs help, call out!" That was...similar to Thor's hammer. But not Thor's hammer. Or was it? It kind of seemed to be all over these days. Jocelyn wasn't quite sure. Regardless, she does recognize, somewhat, the cloak. And of course there's the shield. What was that woman, some sort of messed up mimic? Time enough to sort that out later. "Much as I'd love to smack Electro around, I think the sparkplugs can have their own fun. I'll deal with magic boy. Do what you can to mess with perceptions of the mooks. Turn them around or something with an illusion," Jocelyn suggests to Vorpal. She makes it a point to let Vorpal off before she takes off and goes after Kid Wykkd. There was plenty of kinetic energy around, and so Jocelyn opens up by launching a blast of energy at Kid Wykkd before flying down at him and trying to knock him out with a punch. With Sarah dealing with Cinderblock, it shouldn't be too hard to get around and take some shots at the magic user. And if she could just knock him out, then hey. That would work! The cheshire cat drops to the ground and becomes invisible. Narrowing his eyes, he looks at the AIM soldiers. Right now the other villains were matched one to one, so he decided to do a little thing to help the other heroes before he whipped out the illusions. He watches Cinderblock's advance and summons one of his constructs right before his feet as he moves-- small, glowing marbles. It was cliche... but it was all about the element of surprise, right? Up in the air, Living Lightning and Electro engage in a dragonball-style beam struggle between electical blasts. That's one villain occupied. Cinderblock meanwhile gives a dull, gravely laugh as Sarag comes his way. He's not impressed...mostly because she's a girl. A big fist is drawn back...and suddenly he's trying not to fall because there are marbles. The sound of metal hitting stone rings out and Cinderblock goes flying back, some pieces of his chin knocked clear off. Digging a nice little trench in the ground with his landing, Cinderblock growls as he pulls himself out of it. Kid Wykkd's eyes narrow as Jocelyn comes his way. He waves his cloak as the blast comes in and the blast just vanishes when it makes contact. No energy signal at all. Of course with another wave of the cloak, Jocelyn will find that blast coming right back at her as the villain jumps backwards. AIM goons meanwhile open fire on Vorpal once they see him. Hard to miss a big cat boy after all. There's a slight blink as Sarah notices those marbles, but as her hammer strikes home, she can't help but smile, before she starts to fly directly at Cinderblock. And as the hammer flies right back into Sarahs outstretched hand, she slowly turns to put her shield in front of her as she charges. Then again, as she gets closer, the beginning of a plan starts to form in her mind... "Hey lightning guy! Maybe we should try to ground things a bit?" is said while she mentally tries to keep track of where the other heroes are. After all, if this works out... When Kid Wykkd jumps back, Jocelyn lets off a vertical kinetic burst right behind him. It's her Stargate Manuever, complete with FWOOSH as she hopes the kinetic force will blast the villain face-first into the ground. Meanwhile, the returned blast hits Jocelyn. Normally, this would be a problem. But she can absorb more than she can fire, so the blast just kind of absorbs right back into her. "Huh. Kinda like a boomerang," the girl comments. Though hmm, no use of energy. That was interesting. Jocelyn lets the energy filter out and then decides to yank a little bit of energy from Electro's attacks on Living Lightning. Hopefully that would serve two purposes. First, it would hopefully give Living Lightning an advantage. Secondly, it would give her a tool if she needed it. However, she wouldn't attacking with electricity just yet. Instead, Jocelyn rushes Kid Wykkd and attempts to put him in a headlock. Because mages tended to hate hand-to-hand combat. "Shootin' at me? You think that's a good idea?" the cat smirks... and vanishes into thin air as his invisibility kicks in. He drops low to the ground... and unleashes his power of illusion. Suddenly the shadows coalesce over the AIM goons. It is as if their very shadows were ripped from them and floated upwards, coalescing into a shape. That shape turns out to be a floating 8-foot-tall monstrosity of a woman. She is clad in a ragged red and black velvet dress, cut out in the pattern of hearts. Her skin is deathly pale, and her eyes are blood-red, as is her mouth and the fangs she shows as she smiles in a disconcerting way. Her red hair flies behind her like flames, and around her head is a crown of sorts... comprised of twisted, golden metal upon which still-beating hearts are impaled, their blood leaking down her face. she wields an enormous blade, like a butcher knife, but almost as large as her. Meet the Queen of Hearts, kids, courtesy of the Cheshire Cat. The woman opens her mouth and a resounding voice, like nails on a chalkboard, screams: "OFF ... WITH... THEIR... HEADS!" And then the shadows that had been removed pour out of the Queen, like liquid shadows, and begin to coalesce into a monstrous army--- cards for bodies, but their limbs are crudely sown-on, and obviously long dead. Each Heart card is cowled in red, but there is blood oozing down the front of the card from the knot around the necks. They are all carrying wicked-looking blades, and they advance towards the AIM soldiers with their blades raised. For extra terror, Vorpal engineers it so that when shot, bullet holes appear on the cards, but seal almost instantly. "OFF ... WITH... THEIR... HEADS!" Cinderblock is ready this time. One big hand rises to catch the shield. The force pushes him back a few steps but he's a strong one and once he stops moving, the other fist comes down to slam Sarah into the grass below her. The blast behind him does knock Kid Wykkd off balance and he starts to fall forward...but something unexpected happens. He falls right into the ground. Specifically into his own shadow. When Jocelyn gets close enough, he comes leaping back out of her shadow and slashes at her with his cape. His aim is off so it's just a light mark but Jocelyn will still get a nice cut across his cheek. There's more to that cape than a boomerang trick. The AIM soldiers just keep firing, the ground at Vorpal's feet getting blasted. The worst he's getting is a slight bit of burnt fur from a glancing blast. Their aim sucks. When the horror-queen and her zombie-card monsters appear, the soldiers hesitate. A couple turn tail and run back to the Aero-Vans but others keep shooting. One even tosses a grenade. Both Living Lightning and Electro yell "WHAT?" when Sarah calls to them. When she gets hit, Miguel winces and Electro laughs. Turning back to one another, they start firing blasts at one another again, strafing around one another. What Sarah would like to say is that she was counting on that smack from Cinderblock. Because well... She was. Sort of. But well... She wasn't expecting the smack to be that hard! Thus as she's smacked backwards, and into the grass. In fact there's even a nice trail of grass and dirt as she's knocked in with such force that she ends up a bit 'dug into' the ground. But before the dust cloud from her impact can really settle, she comes flying back out of the ground, her hammer apparently not in her hands as she flies towards the super strong villain. What does she try to do? She doesn't fly directly at him. Instead, she tries to fly slightly to the side at full speed, so she can hopefully grab his arm, before doing a sort of super strength judo throw... Up at Electro! That is if she can even manage to grab his arm and get him off the ground! Teleporters. Effing Teleporters. Jocelyn blinks as the cape cuts her. Geez. She could withstand anything short of, well, anything short of a nuclear blast, and she's cut by a CAPE? This annoys her slightly, and she narrows her eyes. She lets off a series of electrical bursts, attempting to surround Kid Wykkd and keep him at bay while also providing too much light for him to actually fall into his shadow again. But she could see she'd need help with this one, and the fastest way to do that was to help deal with other problems. Jocelyn spots what Sarah is doing and flies over towards the back of Cinderblock's feet. She grabs hold and attempts to assist Sarah in her flip and throw. Between the two of them and their combined super-strength, they should hopefully be able to get the lunkhead airborne. "The caped one is some sort of shadow teleporter. I'm taking suggestions," the energy absorber calls out to the other heroes. Those types just annoyed Jocelyn. It was kind of like sparring Kurt, and it was half luck if you managed to hit him when he went into crazy teleport mode. The cat snarls as the bullets pass way too close. Even invisible, he was in danger of being shot... he needed to disperse the gooons, and quickly. When that one throws the grenade, it gives Vorpal an idea. "Fire in the hole!" he shouts, becoming visible and dismissing all illusions in favor of creating a purple, floating slide in the path of the grenade-- to intercept the grenade and return it in the direction in which it had come, direct into the midst of the AIM soldiers. If they didn't run from that, Vorpal thought, they were morons. People might be surprised how many morons were actually part of 'Advanced Idea Mechanics'. Their screening process sucks. Thankfully the moron level isn't too high. Only one stays...the one that threw the grenade in the first place. Also thankfully, the grenade isn't a normal one. It explodes with kinetic force, sending the beekeeper flying back even as his comrades are piling back into the Aero-Vans. Cinderblock smiles as much as his concrete face allows, he's not expecting Sarah to dodge around him though. The arm's hard to miss and easily grabbed. And with Jocelyn's help, Cinderblock goes flying. He lets out what might be a comical yell. It's enough to alert Electro to the incoming projectile. "What the hell?!" the electric villain yells, diving aside. Cinderblock goes flying...eventually ending up in the water. Good thing he doesn't need to breathe. Electro meanwhile is distracted and sends a few lightning bolts flying at the ladies. He should probably keep his eyes on his opponent though since Living Lightning charges and...dives right into Electro, apparently vanishing. Jocelyn's probably the only one that'll see it, Electro's power doubling and draining at the same time. Might be a good time to duck and cover. Kid Wykkd draws his cape around himself as Jocelyn fires her bursts. He swipes at a few to absorb them and rolls his eyes when the mutant flies off. He looks around slowly before opening his cape and letting the absorbed electrical blasts fly at Vorpal. And as Jocelyn helps Sarah, she grins from ear to ear. Then as Cinderblock goes flying, the legacy hero shouts up at the flying electric weilders, "That's what I meant!" Of course as that's 'block head' goes flying, she also extends her hand behind her, summoning her hammer back to her. All though as she hears the bit about at the teleporter... "If that cat guy is doing illusions..." is said to Jocelyn, "Then we need to get him to dump them all on the teleporter until he's completely disoriented..." Of course with explosions like the ones going off sending the beekeepers flying, the teen hero can't help but think that might not even take those illusions. Well, there were three things Jocelyn could think of right now. First, she was annoyed with the teleporter. So she channels some kinetic energy and starts blasting a bunch of it around Kid Wykkd, attempting to knock the man over. Second, a grin and a nod to Sarah before Jocelyn looks over to Vorpal. "Vorpal! Sensory overload there!" Hopefully Vorpal could confuse the bad guy. Then, finally, there was the boom. "And everyone get behind either me or some serious cover". Jocelyn attempts to absorb some of the incoming explosion, but expected that the impact was likely going to send her flying off somewhere with an overload. But hopefully she'd prevent it from killing anyone! Vorpal took refuge behind Jocelyn as she called out-- and he took a step back when the magician sent energy his way- absorbed by Jocelyn as well. ".... oh... you are going to Rue the day you did that!." The cat snarls... and Sidesteps, teleporting away. Suddenly, there are over twenty Vorpal surrounding the magician, the real one among them, spread out in a way that covers a good number territory. The felines draw their claws and grin at Kid. "It's time to scratch this little itch..." The illusions dodge here and there, moving in and out of Kid's reach as if to attack... That's the distraction. The REAL threat appears over Kid's head as the cheshire cat summons a glowing anvil, and lets it fall to gravity over him. ~Hope you have an aspirin, wizard.~ The explosion looks like it's coming. And only looks worse as Electro lands and starts walking towards Sarah and Jocelyn. Electro starts to laugh and throws his hands forward to launch his attack. The blast of lightning goes flying...but rather than going towards the girls, it arcs up and comes back down in a humanoid shape next to them. Living Lightning returns to his human form with a smirk on his face. "Care to do the honors?" he offers to Sarah, gesturing at Electro. The villain's out of juice and suddenly looking a lot less brave. Kid Wykkd falls into his shadow to avoid Jocelyn's attacks. When he rises back up, he swipes his cape and sends chunks of dirt flying the heroes' way. When the multi-Vorpal bonus starts up, the villain frowns. Still not a word from him as he slashes at some of the illusions. He misses the anvil entirely...until it's hitting him in the head. He goes down hard with a silent gasp, out cold. The Aero-Vans are meanwhile taking off, leaving some stragglers behind to be rounded up with the other villains. There's a grin at Living Lightning before Sarah says two simple words, "With pleasure." as she is suddenly a blurr of motion. Technically she's flying, but she's very, very close to the ground. And when she gets close enough, she just tries to slug Elctro once. In the face. Not hard enough to kill him (she's holding back since he hasn't shown any signs of super strength) but it still should clean his clock and then some. Of course as she finishes doing that, and notices Vorpals anvil and what it did, she then glances at Miguel, and motions towards the escaping astro-vans. "Do you want that pleasure?" Vorpal smirks, dusting his hands off as the anvil hits true. "I swear, you can never go wrong with the classics. Turns out I didn't waste any time at all watching Looney Tunes as a kid." He grins at Sarah and Miguel, looking towards the Astro-vans. "I can't fly... float slowly, yes, but no flight. This one is yours, guys." Electro goes down like a ton of bricks. Amazing electrical powers...glass jaw. Miguel starts to reply but his radio crackles. Frowning, he takes the call and shakes his head. "No, we're good. The bosses called in SHIELD. They're going to intercept them," he says. Turning to the others, Miguel offers a hand to each. "Thanks for the hand, friends. I'm the Living Lightning," he introduces himself. Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. security is meanwhile coming out to round up the KO'd villains. And as the security forces take the captured thugs, Sarah just glances around and bites her lip. "I guess if I want to avoid answering questions, I should get out of here as well." is said to The Living Lightning, before she hehs slightly and nods at Vorpal. "It's all right. But if you want to get out of here as well before certain someones show up, I can give you a lift..." "That won't be needed... I'm registered with the B.S.A.... Vorpal's the name." He smiles at the young woman. "I think we've crossed paths before... and I don't doubt we'll do it again." He takes something out of his uniform and tosses it in her direction. His card. "... if you want to make tracks, I'll stay back here and answer questions." "I'm registered too," Living Lightning chimes in. "You're welcome to hang inside the labs if you don't want to run just yet. We're government funded by the general opinion in there is that if you're a hero, it don't matter if you've got a card or not," he says. Vorpal gets a smirk. "I get one of those cards too?" There's a slight glance at Living Lightning, before Sarah takes a deep breath. Then, in turn, her gaze drifts from him, to Vorpal, and back, before she kneels down, and strikes her hammer against the ground. Cuasing a thunder like sound as her hammer and shield vanish, and her costume is replaced by her civilian garb. "Thanks. Either way... I kind of should remain off the radar so to speak for now..." "Yes, you do--" another purple card flies, this time in Lightning's direction. The purple cat nods at Sarah, "Alright, go ahead and keep a low profile. I'll use my purple and Lightning here his sparks to take up all the attention, they won't think to look for you..." the cat says, kneeling down and picking up Jocelyn "...after I've taken my friend inside and keep her out of sight, as well." Catching the card, Miguel smiles. "Thanks. Maybe I'll give you a call later," the electric hero adds, slipping the card into his vest. Looking to Sarah, he's surprised by the transformation but he lets it go. "You can head out through the side gate there," he tells her, gesturing towards a smaller gate across the lawn. "I'll radio ahead and have the guards let you through. No one'll be paying attention there," he explains. Looking to Vorpal, Miguel nods. "Need a hand?" There's a slight nod as that gate is motioned towards, before Sarah starts to slip off. "Thank you. Both of you." is said even as she eyes Jocelyn. "And hopefully she's all right... And I can make it up to her as well." And with that, the legacy hero heads off. For now. "Toodles!" He says to Sarah, and then he nods to Lightning "Please, if you could? I'd like to make sure she's ok." And with that, the cheshire cat starts leading Jocelyn inside. Nodding, Miguel helps get Jocelyn inside. And the day is won. Even if one villain is missing and several got away, no one was seriously hurt and the bad guys didn't get the sample. Go heroes. Category:Log